Bob Barnard Track Engineering

It is interesting how things turn out. After yesterday's blog about emergency response and Berger's accident at Imola guess what is featured as a retrospective on the Autosport web page? Yep, Berger's accident. And my blog of two days ago spoke of a future crisis for FI, and what do we have on ESPN but an article from the past Secretary of FOTA warning of exactly that. Not saying they are reading me, but a nice confirmation from other sources.

So Joe Saward reports that Chris Pook, Bernie's man, is running around Long Beach giving away an F1 GP.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/pook-talks-long-beach/

I say giving away as he is saying the promoter, either himself or more likely FOM, will not only put it on for nothing, including all costs of upgrades and staging, but will pay the City a fee! If they are prepared to do this why did they not have a GP in New Jersey yet? And how about Singapore and Melbourne, Valencia and sundry other promoters? Won't they want their money back? This is all too weird.

Talking of Bernie's mates, Ron Walker has finaly decided he needs to retire. We could have told him that a long time ago. Right from the start actually. A good friend who was there at the start told me the story of how Ron turned up at a protest meeting in Albert Park in his Rolls Royce. When my friend suggested to him that it was not very tactful Ron went right off on him. He then turned up at my friend's home in a Mini and demanded to know if he was happy now!

Our old friend Luca has been very quiet lately. He could usually be counted on to provide some good ammunition for us bloggers, but he must be busy on his election campaign. His buddy has just resigned as General Secretary of FOTA among rumors he is also going into politics in Italy. So Luca says Domenicali has his full commitment, no he does not need Adrian Newey, even though he is "tired of losing the Championship at the last race." He likes the move to pay-for-view as long as their is a balance of free-to-air, I bet he does. Like Whitmarsh he is looking for F1 to move with the times and get on iPad etc.

Talking of Whitmarsh, he is trying to smooth out a potential problem with the Indian tax man who is likely to withold part of the teams income from the GP under Indian law. This has been simmering under the surface with the teams financial gurus trying to find a solution. Martin is playing down a boycott of the race, it does not need any more issues to deal with, but he says "you do not go to somewhere if you are going to be penalised." Our old friend Ron Walker from Melbourne must know how to solve that as I recall we had a similar potential problem with the Oz bike GP. Ron and his circuit mates are still carrying on about the new engine needing to be 18,000 rpm so it sounds right for the punters, or they will go elsewhere. Randy Bernard from Indycar just happens to be in Monza, but he has been meeting all sorts of people in the last year, and has Ron heard an Indycar?

Continuing the promoters theme our friends at Pit Pass, who I have said I suspect are close to Bernie, have floated the idea that with the demise of the Turkish GP F1 Group could be looking for another race to promote. Lo and behold Austin is suggested as a prime contender. I have always thought there is something or someone behind the Tavo thing, or am I a conspiracy theorist? Bernie used to promote a lot of races, but presumably worked out that this is a certain way to lose money. I guess if the Texas Government is paying the fee and Tavo's backers are building the track then promoting this race may not be such a risk. India and Poland, yes Poland, are other potential races mentioned. Apparently F1 Group has applied for the "Grand Prix of Poland" trademark. They had better pray that Kubica's upcoming time in the simulator or car is positive. We all hope it will be and it is great to hear he is recovered enough to start driving again in whatever form.

Red Bull pulled a surprise on the other teams by taking pole for tomorrow's race, well Vettel did, Mark was back in 5th after a less than stellar practice and qualifying. More KERS problems and an old engine, although Mark in his usual fashion refused to look for excuses. Hamilton and the team blinked in Q2 after setting a good time on the hard tires which would have seen him through and saved a set of options, but at the end of the session they put on the options to make sure of progressing. Should have stuck to their guns, but that is easy for me to say sitting at home. Vettel is running very little wing but still putting in great times through the fast corners, and has short geared the car which helps the drive out of corners but will put him in trouble for top speed if the others can get near him, a big if. So a different strategy which would presumably be ruled out if the teams have to nominate their eight ratios at the start of the season as that odd rule for 2014 states. More restrictions. Ferrari tried Massa towing Alonso around to try and get a good starting position for their home race, but ended up 4th behind the two McLarens. Tomorrow should be interesting with McLaren thinking they are in a good position, but don't they always.

Bottas secured the GP3 title with a win here, and Fillipi dominated the GP2 race but Grosjean already has the title and a possible F1 seat.

In Silverstone Peugeot went on to secure pole for tomorrow's race with the Audis second and fourth around the second Peugeot.The Rebellion is four seconds of the pole time, but only a second off the slowest Audi. All the petrol cars are within a second so that would be good to watch, if you can see it. Try http://tv.audi.com/#/01

Bit early for me and will clash with the GP. In GTE Pro the BMWs mugged the Ferraris with 1-2 in qualifying, with Porsche also strong. Pat Long put his GTE Am Porsche on pole, but it is hard to see Pat as an amateur.

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has come out in defence of Mark Webber and said he will have a seat at Red Bull next year despite ignoring Horner last weekend. Where else is he going to go, and who else could be as good for the team, was his prescient comment. I'm sure Mark is very annoyed by the team orders, he is continuing to talk to the press about it saying he understands the team wants points, but so does he, and is confident that he and Seb can race each other without crashing. They managed to pass their other rivals so what's the problem? The problem for Mark is that a number one seat is not available at any team likely to give him a competitive car, so what do you do?

Rupert Murdoch's woes continue to mount and he has now been forced to withdraw his bid for the rest of BSkyB. This gives him a bunch of available cash, but the latest revelations are unlikely to persuade Jean Todt that he is a fit and proper person to own F1.

On the basis that any news coverage is good news Adam Parr has come out and said that the weekend's shambles over the blown diffusers is good for the sport. Not totally sure I agree, but as he said the fact that the press were all over it only reinforces how important F1 is. As he said to a journo, "you're not off in Wales covering darts are you." 

On the same basis the "Circuit of the Americas" aka Austin, must be important. Following on yesterday's news it seems the approval for the buildings is imminent. Let's hope so, it is now eleven months to the scheduled race, and therefore eight months before the FIA inspection. Now that is still time, we did the work in Daytona in less than six, but there was a greater sense of urgency than I am getting out of Austin. 

As was predictable the Indycar series has come out and poured cold water on Ron Walker's threat that the F1 tracks would go to Indycar if they did not get their way on the new for 2014 engine. Why would Indycar suddenly abandon their base and go trotting off around the world until the tracks got their way and dumped them? Yes we have seen that Long Beach did well by ditching F1 and going to CART, but that's here in the US. Surfers Paradise tried to take on the F1 GP with a CART/Indycar race, but gave up and are running their home grown V8Supercars series. Japan has not exactly embraced the Indycars even though they have Honda engines, and CART tried Europe a long time ago and failed. A far better threat from Ron would be to say they will all go with a breakaway series by the Teams, but I'm sure Bernie's contracts are all over that. Basically the tracks have no clout, there are always others waiting to take their place, that is why Bernie can get away with his outrageous fees. 

 

Lewis is sending mixed messages at the moment, saying that he is committed to McLaren and likes Button as his team mate etc. Then we hear the radio transmissions, and read that he thinks McLaren is not taking enough risks, and he fears that they will take a step backward when the blown exhaust is severely restricted. Then we read that he would take less money to drive a winning car, well it is relative when you make that much, it's not as if he is offering to drive it for nothing. He does not look or sound happy, and why would he be? It is interesting to compare his situation with Alonso. Both fierce competitors in cars that cannot win, but Alonso says he is very happy as he knows in his mind he is driving at his best at the moment. Kovalainen said something similar despite being in a car 4 seconds off the pace, but you can't see Lewis being happy with anything less than winning can you?

Seems the media were very unhappy about the race in Valencia, F1 is boring again, and the track is getting a lot of stick. Kids with a scalectrix kit could do better is the consensus. Ouch! As I understand it Bernie had a lot to do with how this is laid out, so Tilke can't have all the blame. As I said to my wife during the race I would not rush off to Valencia based on what I see on TV. Interesting that there were no DNF's for mechanical reasons or crashes, which I think is only the third F1 race in history. On a street circuit? That tells me that despite what it looks like the boys are not pushing ten tenths, as Moss would say. Of course the lovely asphalt run-offs let you make mistakes without penalty.

The circuit owners are going beyond the threatened 4 cylinder boycott and are demanding an engine that revs to 18,000 rpm as now. "The noise is part of the brand," says Ron Walker, and the brand is what we signed on for. Is this the beginning of a brave new world, has the worm turned? Ron assures us that he is not Bernie's mouthpiece. Let's wait and see shall we? Bernie can pick them off one at a time over the fees, but if all of them stick to their guns then he would be hard pressed to replace 20 tracks.

There is so little news the web sites are making it up with the excuse it is April Fools Day. What are they going to do tomorrow? What is not a joke is the announcement that the Victorian Government is going to audit this years race. I would have thought they would have audited every years race. Ron Walker says he is confident it will show they did not lose more than last year, and he hopes a bit less. I'm sure the good people of Victoria are glad to know that they only tipped in about the same $50m as last year, and not more!

It's good to see that the DTM have dropped that crazy street race in Shanghai as the last round of their series, both because the track was awful, and second, why would you end your major Championship half way around the world? Send the TV signal instead if you want to sell cars there.

In what must be an April Fools joke there is reported to be ongoing discussions to put Bahrain back on the calendar. I'm sure we could squeeze in Libya while we are in the area.

In Jerez the Stoner/Pedrosa/Honda show goes on where they left off in Qatar, swapping fast times in the two practice sessions. Lorenzo managed to get himself up to third in the second session, and Valentino is showing much better form in the sense of grid placings, but is still a long way off the time of Stoner. Ben Spies seems strangely off the boil.

You would not think the LMS race is on at Paul Ricard, or whatever you want to call it today. The only news I see is from Guy Smith's Linkedin. Still, I suppose if Audi and Peugeot are not there, nor the Aston, then why bother? Is this how ALMS is going to go?

On a final note this "fools day" Bob Varsha believes it is a "joke" that Kimi is going to race in NASCAR. The only joke is you Bob